CenterPoint names new CEO as Mullen retires

Michael Mullen, left, is retiring as CEO of CenterPoint and will be replaced by President Paul Fisher, right.

(Crain's) — CenterPoint Properties CEO Michael Mullen is stepping down after more than six years at the helm of the Chicago area's largest industrial real estate firm. He will be replaced by longtime associate Paul Fisher, currently the firm's president.

Mr. Mullen, 56, officially retires Sept. 30 and will remain on CenterPoint's board of trustees as vice-chairman and will also serve on the Oak Brook-based company's asset-allocation committee.

“Mike will be greatly missed, because he had so much development and construction expertise,” says David Kahnweiler, head of the local office of brokerage firm Colliers International, who owned some properties that were rolled into CenterPoint when the firm was formed and went public in 1993. “But over the years they've developed this company around themselves. They're very deep with talent.”

The leadership change at the 100-some employee firm comes as CenterPoint transitions from a Chicago-focused company to more of a national player that specializes in developing intermodal yards, where freight containers come in by rail and depart on trucks, as well as buying and building warehouses along major rail lines.

CenterPoint was taken private in 2006 when it was acquired by the nation's largest pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), which first began making investments with CenterPoint in 1999.

Mr. Fisher, 55, did stints as CenterPoint's general counsel and chief financial officer and like Mr. Mullen was one of the company's founding executives in 1993. He became president in January 2005, when Mr. Mullen was promoted to CEO.

In recent years, CenterPoint has opened offices in Milwaukee, Kansas City and Los Angeles and is likely to open more regional hubs in big markets such as Texas and the New York-New Jersey area.

“I'm excited about the opportunity,” Mr. Fisher says. “I expect us in five to 10 years to be a full-blown, national real estate firm with this very solid focus on transportation real estate.”

Mr. Fisher is a native of Moon Township, Pa., outside Pittsburgh, who first came to Chicago as a law student at the University of Chicago. He graduated in 1980 and then practiced law for a couple years before leaving for the business world, where he landed in real estate finance.

He joined up with Mr. Mullen's predecessor John Gates at Capital Regional Properties Corp., the U.S. arm of a publicly held British company, a couple years before Capital Regional and a local industrial development firm co-owned by Mr. Mullen, FCLS Investors Group, merged to form CenterPoint.

Both Messrs. Mullen and Fisher say there are no plans for CenterPoint to go public again in the near term and that its ownership by CalPERS is advantageous given the early stage of some of CenterPoint's biggest new developments, including the 3,600-acre Joliet Intermodal facility that opened last fall as a follow up to the nearby Elwood Intermodal yard.

Mr. Mullen, who says he's been planning to retire for several years and has no set plans other than taking some trips abroad with his family, points to developing air cargo freight facilities at O'Hare International Airport in the mid- to late 1990's and the Joliet and Elwood intermodal projects as his career highlights.

“We made it through the recession. The company's in great shape; I've had my turn,” says Mr. Mullen, who started in industrial real estate with a predecessor to FCLS immediately after his 1976 graduation from Loyola University Chicago. “A lot of people I know have had tons of careers. I've done the same thing for 36 years . . . I want to relax a little bit.”